


Five First Kisses

by stickster (all_these_ghosts)



Category: Star Wars Legends: New Jedi Order Era - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-15
Updated: 2005-11-15
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8881354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_these_ghosts/pseuds/stickster
Summary: Five extremely AU scenarios. Most of them are sad.





	

**I. Lullaby**

She's freezing cold on some barren planet, and Kyp curses whoever determined that she would die here. Wonders not for the first time ( _probably the last_ ) if there actually is any reason to any of it at all. If it's just the cruelty of random chance that has left her dying here.

Wrapped in his arms, her breaths are slow and laborious, and every one of them echoes in his chest. "Sing me something," she says, and Kyp realizes she's delirious. She hasn't asked anything like that in sixteen years.

"I don't know any nice songs," he says, and pulls her a little closer. Her teeth are chattering.

"Not a lullaby," she says, gritting her teeth against the cold. "Not a nice song. Not the kind that sings you to sleep." She wraps her slender fingers around his wrists, trapping him, as though he hadn't been trapped with her, _in_ her, since her brothers died. "Why would I ask you to sing me a lullaby? You never had anybody to sing them."

"No. I didn't."

Jaina exhales slowly, watching her breath evaporate before her. "We're going to die here."

And Kyp just nods. "Yes. We are."

She turns in his arms, pressing her face against his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist. "Okay," she says.

He sighs and leans his forehead on her shoulder. Their bodies form a coccoon; their breaths mingle and warm them at least a little bit. Enough that it doesn't hurt as much.

"It won't hurt," Jaina says, reading his mind. "Not like it hurt Anakin or Jacen. When you freeze to death you just fall asleep."

Kyp doesn't respond, _there's nothing to say_ , just holds her a little closer. Her breaths are coming more slowly now, and when he brushes her lips with his fingers he is surprised by just how cold they are.

Tentatively, he touches his mouth to hers. Jaina closes her eyes and leans into the kiss without deepening it. Neither of them has energy to spare.

"It won't hurt," she whispers against his lips, and then there are no more words.

**II. Promises**

"Jaina," Kyp calls across the hangar. "Jaina!"

But her slim form is already running, ignoring post-flight checks, debriefings. Just running, her long brown braid flopping against her back with every heavy step. He doesn't even try to keep up:

Because it isn't hard to find her. There aren't many places anyone can go to be alone during a war, even if one is a goddess. And so he knocks on the door of her cabin, and when she doesn't respond, he types in the code and steps inside. The lights are off.

"Jaina," he says again, softly. "Are you in here?"

She doesn't make a sound, but she doesn't need to. Kyp sits down next to her on the narrow cot, but he doesn't touch her.

They sit silently in the dark for what might be ten years or ten seconds, until Jaina finally admits, bitterness and defeat heavy in her voice: "I let him die."

Kyp sighs. Because the semantic truth of it is yes, she "let him die," but that's not the entire truth. It isn't even the truth that matters. "If you had gone after him, you would have been killed," he points out.

She turns on him suddenly, venom lacing her words and tinting her irises amber as she glowers at him. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she spits. "Maybe it would have been better if I--"

" _No_." Kyp clenches his fists involuntarily, trying to keep his anger from boiling up to match hers. "It wouldn't have solved anything if we'd all died."

The calmness he's sure he maintained doesn't assuage her. "What are you _talking_ about? Why would you have died?"

Kyp almost wants to laugh. It surprises him that she has to ask, though he knows he shouldn't have expected her to notice. She's had a lot on her mind, lately.

He carefully examines the bare grey walls. "Because I would have followed you."

The fight suddenly goes out of her, and it's a visible change: her shoulders slump, her hands relax, and she, too, finds something fascinating written on the walls. She picks up one of his hands in hers and holds it tightly. "I have to write his parents. I have to--I have to talk to Wedge, I have to--"

He squeezes her hand. "Not tonight, Goddess," he says gently. "Wedge already knows, and the letter can wait until tomorrow."

"What am I going to say to them?" she wonders aloud. "His brother and sister are dead, too, how am I supposed to explain that Jag is--what happened?"

"Fel's a military man," Kyp says, trying to sound reassuring. "He'll understand."

"No one can understand this," she snaps. "No one."

He doesn't say anything. Instead, he turns to her and cups her cheek with his hand. She closes her eyes and turns her face into his palm with a soft sigh, and he loves the way her soft skin feels against his calloused fingers, he loves the way her eyelashes flutter against her cheekbones, he loves that she doesn't turn away from him.

He closes his eyes and leans in to press his mouth to hers gently, so gently that she wouldn't notice if she weren't acutely aware of his every movement. She is, though, always, and she pulls herself closer to him. Her hands find their way into his hair, and for the first time in two years Kyp wonders when he last washed it.

Her face is flushed when they pull apart. "Kyp--"

He stands up quickly, fighting the dizziness that he wants to blame on gravity, but that almost certainly has a human source.

But she pulls on his hand and shakes her head. "Don't go."

"What?" Surprised, eyebrows raised. He knows he shouldn't have kissed her, though he'll never regret it, knows that she's young and hurting and _Han's daughter_ , and she should be pushing him away instead of asking him to stay--

Jaina swallows hard. "I almost lost you today." The goddess is replaced by a terrified girl with a voice so husky and choked that it hardly sounds like hers at all. "Don't leave."

It's all the excuse he needs. Kyp drops to the bed beside her again and pulls her into a hug. She curls up against him, her small frame maneuvering easily in his embrace. She slides her arms around his waist. "Everyone's going away," she whispers, and Kyp can feel a damp spot on his shirt where her face rests, can feel her thin fingers clutching at the fabric. "Don't go away. Don't leave me here alone. I don't want to be alone."

"I won't." _I couldn't if I wanted to._

He takes her chin in his hand and kisses her again, allowing himself to relinquish a little more control this time, allowing himself to be swept away by her salty skin and soft lips and the heat of her hands against his skin. She is branding him, he thinks, half-delirious as her lips move down his neck, as her hands slide under his shirt.

As she lies back on the cot, pulling him down on top of her.

_Stop stop stop stop--_

He tries to pull himself from her arms. "Jaina," he murmurs, "We shouldn't--"

"You said you wouldn't leave," she reminds him between small, warm kisses. Her face is shadowed and the dim light catches only the barest glint in her dark eyes.

She smiles slightly, a little of the mischief and courage he loves returning to her face, and whispers, "So don't leave."

**III. Power**

She is lounging on a dark blue sofa, completely at ease. So much at ease that she doesn't even look up when he enters, just yawns and says, "What are you doing here, Durron?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Did Skywalker send you?" Jaina asks with a sigh.

Kyp narrows his eyes. "Which one? Your aunt or your uncle?"

Her head turns sharply towards him. "They're _not_ my family," she sneers. "Luke Skywalker renounced his heritage, his _power_ \--"

"So did Vader."

And then he can't breathe, can't think, her hands are wrapped so tightly--

"You will not speak of my grandfather in that manner."

She releases him casually with a flick of her wrist, and he drops unceremoniously to the floor.

"You don't have to do this, Jaina," Kyp rasps, clutching at his throat. "It doesn't have to be this way."

Her gaze turns hard and angry and she opens her mouth to speak--then stops. She examines him, an appraising look in her eyes. "No," she says finally. "It doesn't."

Jaina walks over to him and pulls him to his feet. Bewildered, he stands in silence as she trails her fingers along his bicep, across his broad shoulders, up to the strong line of his jaw.

"Rule with me," she says, her head cocked as she studies his eyes. "You're as powerful than Skywalker. You know how to harness the dark side. And you hate the galaxy as much as I do."

He jerks back and breaks eye contact. "I don't."

"Yes, you do," she responds evenly. "You hate the way they sneer at you. You hate that so many people think you can never atone. You hate that you were almost executed for crimes that plenty of others have gotten away with. You hate the way the other Jedi patronize you." The corner of her mouth twists upward in a perversion of her familiar grin. "You hate them, but you still love me."

He swallows. "I don't," he repeats, but his words now are only a pale echo of his earlier protest.

All of the softness is gone from her; her skin is cold and when she presses her body against his, all he can feel are the sharp edges of her bones. But she's still Jaina, and for a moment when her eyes light up he thinks she can still come back.

Instead she exhales a hollow laugh, and the light in her eyes isn't a light at all but an alien amber glow. She leans in abruptly and kisses him with more teeth than tongue, her nails carve bloody lines into the skin at the back of his neck, but he still can't pull away.

**IV. Absolution**

He feels her before he sees her.

It's been--how long? Too long. Years, two, maybe three, since he saw her last. She isn't attractive, not the way she used to be: her hair isn't glossy, her eyes are bloodshot and dull, her skin pale and waxy. But she still shines in the Force.

Jaina Solo, more than any of them, is still proud and fierce and beautiful.

But it wasn't enough to save him, and it won't be enough to save her.

She takes a seat in the back just in time to hear the judge intone:

"For crimes against humanity, crimes too numerous and unconscionable to be named, the New Galactic Empire hereby sentences Kyp Durron to death."

An appreciative murmur rolls through the entirely human, mostly uniformed crowd.

"The sentence shall be carried out with due haste," the judge continues. "The execution will take place at oh-eight-hundred hours tomorrow."

The murmur grows to a roar, and one young man stands up and raises a fist. "For Carida!" he proclaims.

The crowd, the _audience_ , echoes back: "For Carida!"

When Kyp turns around, he and Jaina make eye contact.

She isn't crying, but her eyes are bright as she stands up to make her way through the crowd. They part before her hurriedly, as though her plain brown robes signify some terrible contagion. Her mouth moves in the shape of his name, and he swears he can hear it even over the din of the crowd.

She reaches him quickly, and the guards do nothing to stop her from taking his hands in hers. "Kyp," she says, speaking quickly, too conscious of how little time they have left. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I tried and--"

"Shh," he interrupts, fighting to keep his voice calm and steady. "I know."

Jaina moves her hands up to cup his face, pulling his head down so their foreheads press together. "I've missed you."

"You've been doing what you have to do. Jaina, you shouldn't be here, they'll know who you are--"

"I don't care," she responds fiercely. "They might as well kill me, too. They've taken everything else."

Kyp winces. "Don't say that."

"Why not? It's true."

_Because you can't give up. Because if_ Jaina Solo _has given up, then what hope is there for anyone else?_

"You have to go, Jaina." He eyes the guards, who are still keeping a careful distance away. If she's going to get out, it has to be now.

"I never got to--"

"Doesn't matter, Goddess. I already knew." For a moment a smile appears on his face, one that hints at the cocky grin that had once come so easily to him. "I always knew."

It is at this moment that the crowd starts to recognize what's going on, that the guards remember themselves and the judge calls the room to order--it is at this moment that Jaina leans up just slightly and brings their lips together. For the first time, for the last time, it's both and neither and it doesn't matter, so long as she can feel him against her, can feel his chapped lips against hers, nothing else matters--

They are pulled apart, roughly. And Jaina dimly hears her name spoken by someone in the mob, and dimly feels stuncuffs embracing her wrists, but his green eyes cut through all of the chaos and the noise and the bright lights, and she says it, _proclaims_ it, as though if these people could hear her conviction they would overturn his: "I love you."

Kyp nods, and his eyes are dark with loss and anger but not with fear: not of this, not ever. "I love you," he says. "Go."

Jaina bites her lip and nods, steeling herself for one more escape. She _pulls_ out of the guards' grasp, shattering the stuncuffs and running for the door--

And everything goes black.

**V. Future Imperfect**

"Thanks for dinner," Jaina says, toying with the bracelet he'd bought her from one of the many street vendors in the neighborhood. "It was...really nice. To see you again."

He smirks. "Of course. It's always nice to spend time with a goddess."

Jaina giggles and elbows him in the stomach. "Nice," she teases. She's long since given up on his giving up calling her Goddess, and she finds that really, it's been an even longer time since it actually bothered her.

There is silence as they walk, until they both speak each other's names at the same time, then stop abruptly and laugh.

"You first," Jaina says, still smiling.

He shrugs, gives her a rakish, lopsided grin that erases all of the marks of age on his face. "Are you--going to be on Denon any time soon?"

She grins back. "Why do you ask, Master Durron?"

"We could do this again."

"This being...?"

"We have dinner, make fun of each other, possibly engage in hand-to-hand combat, and then I buy you something nice?"

She takes his left hand in hers. Her hands are warm and rough and fit too perfectly in his. "We should," she agrees, and she flashes him that smile again. There have been too many times that he's despaired of ever seeing her look that happy again, and he thinks not for the first time that he could be content spending the rest of his life making her smile.

Jaina leans her head against his shoulder. "I've missed you," she says, and they're both surprised by the ease of her admission. "I've been lonely."

Kyp puts his arm around her shoulders, and it's so easy, so _natural_ , and when she smiles up at him he's certain that no time at all has passed.

But it has: the rebuilding of Coruscant spreads out below and around them, incomplete but promising. Beings of hundreds of different species are working late into the evening, cooking and drilling and selling, recreating the lives they lived before the war. The galaxy is piecing itself back together, slowly, and he thinks that maybe it's time for its heroes to do the same.

He presses a soft kiss to the top of her head and she wraps her arm around his waist. They stand in silence, watching the universe take control of its future. Watching it begin anew.

Today is her thirtieth lifeday, and he thinks: What better day for a new life to begin?

"Jaina," he says suddenly.

She looks up at him curiously. "Yeah?"

Kyp hesitates for only a moment before he turns to face her, taking her hands in his. "Marry me," he says.

He has the rare pleasure of watching complete, unadulterated shock pass over Jaina's pretty face. " _What?_ " she manages.

"You heard me. Marry me," he says, and he's laughing now, because he hasn't seen her in months, hasn't spoken to her in longer, and he must be completely insane, and has she ever looked more beautiful than at this precise moment?

She's shaking her head in disbelief, and then she's laughing too, and then--Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming--she jumps into his arms and he spins her around until they're both ready to fall over from the sheer vertigo of it. "You're insane," she says breathlessly. "Yes. I'll marry you, I'll--"

But he cuts her off, kissing her deeply. Her giggling stops abruptly, changes to a soft, low moan as he finally kisses her the way he's wanted to for years: their bodies pressed so tightly together that there couldn't be even a molecule of air between them, her hands tangling in his hair, his running over her body in a search for some way to pull them even closer together. Her lips, as soft and pliant as he'd imagined, though even his best dreams couldn't replicate the way it felt to have her kiss him _back_.

Jaina is the first to pull away, though she remains in his embrace as she breathes heavily, her strong, fast heartbeat echoing in his chest. "You're way too old to kiss like that," she teases.

Kyp raises an eyebrow. "Me? Old?"

She examines a strand of gray hair--one of many, these days. "Mmhmm. You're ancient."

"Too late to change your mind now, Goddess," he says lightly. "You already said you'd marry me, and I'm holding you to it."

Jaina closes her eyes and kisses him again, lightly, so that their lips barely touch. "Okay," she replies, gracing him with a smile he's seen before but that has never been directed at him--one that's soft and warm and full of a love he never thought he'd receive, not from her--and yet.

She buries her face in his neck and sighs comfortably, tightening her arms around his shoulders. "As long as you're holding me."


End file.
